The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (books under 200 pages .txt) π
Description
Like many of Hardyβs novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge is set in the fictional county of Wessex in the mid 1800s. It begins with Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, drunk on rum, auctioning off his wife and baby daughter at a village fair. The next day, overcome with remorse, Henchard resolves to turn his life around. When we meet Henchard eighteen years later, temperance and hard work have made him wealthy and respectable. However, he cannot escape his past. His secret guilt, his pride, and his impulsive temper all serve to sabotage his good name.
The Mayor of Casterbridge was published in 1886, first as a magazine serial and then later that year as a book. It is perhaps most noteworthy for the psychological portrait of Michael Henchard, a tragic character who remains sympathetic while simultaneously being deeply flawed. Typical of other Hardy novels, it also vividly depicts life in the rural countryside at that time.
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- Author: Thomas Hardy
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For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing a trite old evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the hill at the same hour, and with the selfsame trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that season for centuries untold. But as they approached the village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their ears from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened from view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could just be described, the family group was met by a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it. The reader promptly glanced up.
βAny trade doing here?β he asked phlegmatically, designating the village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the labourer did not understand him, he added, βAnything in the hay-trussing line?β
The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. βWhy, save the man, what wisdomβs in him that βa should come to Weydon for a job of that sort this time oβ year?β
βThen is there any house to letβ βa little small new cottage just a builded, or suchlike?β asked the other.
The pessimist still maintained a negative. βPulling down is more the nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and three this; and the volk nowhere to goβ βno, not so much as a thatched hurdle; thatβs the way oβ Weydon-Priors.β
The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he continued, βThere is something going on here, however, is there not?β
βAy. βTis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than the clatter and scurry of getting away the money oβ children and fools, for the real business is done earlier than this. Iβve been working within sound oβt all day, but I didnβt go upβ βnot I. βTwas no business of mine.β
The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the Fair field, which showed standing-places and pens where many hundreds of horses and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great part taken away. At present, as their informant had observed, but little real business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals, that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been absolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came and went early. Yet the crowd was denser now than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors, including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in; persons whose activities found a congenial field among the peepshows, toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, nicknack vendors, and readers of Fate.
Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they looked around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on its summit; it announced βGood Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cider.β The other was less new; a little iron stovepipe came out of it at the back and in front appeared the placard, βGood Furmity Sold Hear.β The man mentally weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to the former tent.
βNoβ βnoβ βthe other one,β said the woman. βI always like furmity; and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long hard day.β
βIβve never tasted it,β said the man. However, he gave way to her representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.
A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow tables that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell-metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a white apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of the pot. The dull scrape of her large spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins, currants, and whatnot, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels holding the separate ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close by.
The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far, for furmity, as the woman had said, was nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained within the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the man, with the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl, he watched the hagβs proceedings from the corner of his eye, and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle from under the table, slyly measured out a quantity of its contents, and tipped the same into the manβs furmity. The liquor poured in was rum. The man as slyly sent back money in payment.
He found the concoction, thus strongly laced,
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